Players of the People’s Postcode Lottery have helped The Footprint Trust receive £20,000 in funding from People’s Postcode Trust, a grant-giving charity funded by the lottery players.
The funding has allowed The Footprint Trust to reduce fuel poverty and help a total of 968 households across the Isle of Wight reduce their energy bills by over £100,000.
The grant money was initially intended to provide sustainable support for people struggling with high home energy and water bills, but with the onset of COVID-19, it enabled The Footprint Trust to change its working practices so it could continue to support vulnerable people on the Isle of Wight during the lockdowns.
The Newport-based charity has seen the busiest Winter on record due to the pandemic and the associated increased poverty.
Ray Harrington-Vail, General manager, has said:
“We put our clients on the Priority Service Register which offers emergency help for vulnerable people in a gas, electric or water outage, we referred people onto other bodies for additional support, including Citizens Advice, veteran and other charities.
“When the PPT provided funding, no one could have predicted the economic fallout that would result from the Covid-19 pandemic. On 23rd March 2020 the Prime Minister addressed that nation concerning the major health threat posed by Covid. Amongst measures announced were that people should only go to work where it was absolutely necessary and that staff should work from home if possible, that social distancing should be practiced to prevent infection rates going up.
“To protect our vulnerable clients, the larger community and our staff and volunteers all home visits were cancelled with immediate effect. We replaced home visits with pre-booked phone visits.
Article continues below this advertisement “The Trust already had a flood plan, as our offices are at the Riverside Centre an area at risk of flooding. That plan involved moving computers etc to homes of staff and diverting phones. That plan was used for the Covid emergency.”
The Footprint Trust contacted the People’s Postcode Trust and sought permission to change its operation practices and thanks to the People’s Postcode Trust’s realistic and supportive approach, the charity was able to continue to serve vulnerable people through the pandemic, particularly through the recent cold snap.
Laura Chow, head of charities at People’s Postcode Lottery, said:
“Many of us have been spending more time at home than ever before so I’m delighted funding raised by players of People’s Postcode Lottery has enabled the Footprint Trust to help tackle fuel poverty and help so many households on the Isle of Wight become more energy efficient.”
